Commentary on Genesis (Complete Edition). Martin Luther
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Moses, who in this passage calls the stars and other luminaries of heaven by a military term, calling them the host or the warning army of heaven. After a similar mode of expression he calls men beasts and trees the host or army of the earth. Perhaps this is in anticipation of the solemn realities that were to come. For God afterwards calls himself also the God of hosts or of armies; that is, not of angels and of spirits only, but of the whole creation also, which was for him and serves him. For ever since Satan was cast off by God for sin he has been filled with such desperate hatred of God and of men that he would, if he could, in one moment empty the sea of all its fishes and the air of all its birds, strip the earth of all its fruits and utterly destroy all things. But God has created all these creatures that they may be a standing army as it were; that they might fight for us and our subsistence against the devil and against men also, and thus serve us and be to us an unceasing benefit.
V. 2. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
Here cavillers raise a question of this nature: Moses says that God "rested on the seventh day from the work he had made;" that is, that he ceased on the seventh day to work: while Christ says on the other hand, John 5:17, "My Father worketh hitherto, or until now, and I work." The passage contained in Heb. 4:3, helps to explain the present text, where it is written, "If they shall enter into My rest," not indeed into the land of promise, but into "My rest."
My simple and plain reply to the above question is, that a solution of any difficulty that may be raised is furnished by the present text itself, when it says, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished." The Sabbath or rest of the Sabbath here signifies that God so rested, as not to have any further design of creating any other heaven and earth. It does not signify that God ceased to preserve and govern the heaven and the earth, which he had now created and finished.
Concerning the manner of the creation Moses gives us the fullest information in the preceding chapter, that God created all things by the Word! "Let the sea bring forth fishes;" "Let the earth bring forth the green herb, the beast," etc., etc. And by the same Word, God also said, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." Now all these words of God remain unto this present day. And therefore it is that we see the multiplication of all these creatures go on without cessation or end. Wherefore if the world were to last for a number of years endless and infinite, the power and efficacy of these words would never cease, but there would still be continued a multiplication of all these creatures perpetual and endless by the mere infinite power of this Word of God; this Word of the first creation and foundation of all things, if I may so express the original and originating Word.
The solution of the question now under consideration therefore is easy and plain. "God rested on the seventh day from the work which he had made;" that is, God was content with the earth and the heaven which he had created by the Word. He created not nor intended to create new heavens or new earths, nor new stars nor new trees. God nevertheless still works. He "worketh hitherto," as Christ says above. He forsakes not nature, which he once made "in the beginning;" but he preserves and governs it to this day, by the power of his Word. He has ceased from his creation-work, but he has not ceased from his government-work. The human race began in Adam. In the earth began by the Word the animal race, if I may so speak; in the sea, the race of fishes; and in the air, the race of birds. But the human race did not cease in Adam, nor did all other races cease in the first created animals of their kind. The Word originally spoken upon the human race still remains in all its power and efficiency. The word, "Be fruitful and multiply," ceases not nor ever will cease, nor the words, "Let the sea bring forth fishes," nor "Let the earth bring forth beasts and the air birds." The omnipotent power and efficacy of the original Word still preserves and governs the whole creation.
Most clearly therefore has Moses established the great truth, that "In the beginning was the Word," John 1:1. And as all creatures still increase and multiply, and are preserved and governed, still in the same way as they were "in the beginning," it manifestly follows that the Word still continues and lives, and that it is not dead! When Moses says therefore, "And God rested on the seventh day from the work which he had made," his words are not to be considered as having reference to the general course and laws of nature nor to their continuous preservation and government, but simply to the "beginning;" that God ceased from creating, ordering and ordaining all things, as we generally speak, and from creating any new creatures or new kinds of animals, etc., etc.
With respect to Martin Luther before you. If you look at my individual person I am a certain kind of new creature; because sixty years ago I had no existence. This is the common thought and judgment of the world. But the thought and judgment of God are far different. For in God's sight I was begotten and commenced, being multiplied immediately "from the beginning of the world." When God said, "Let us make man," he then created me also. For whatever God willed to create that he did create when he spoke the word. All things did not then appear indeed on a sudden before our existing eyes. For as the arrow or the ball from the cannon, in which is the greatest velocity attached to the works of men is in one moment directed to its mark, and yet does not reach that mark without a certain interval and space between, so God rushes, as it were by his Word, from "the beginning" to the end of the world. For with God there is no before nor afterwards; no swift nor slow; but all things to his eyes are at once present. For God is simply absolutely independent of and alone, and separate from all time!
These words of God therefore, and God said, "Let there be," "increase and multiply," etc., create, constitute and ordain all creatures, as they were, as they now are, and as they will be unto the end of the world. God has indeed ceased from creating new creatures. For he has created no new heaven, no new earth. But as he originally willed the sun and the moon to perform their courses, so have they continued to perform them to this day. As God then filled the sea with fishes, the heaven with fowls, and the earth with beasts and cattle, so have all these parts of his will been fulfilled to this day; and so have they all been preserved to this moment, as Christ said, "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." For the Word, which God spoke in the beginning, remaineth unto this day; as it is said with great majesty in Ps. 33:9, "He spake and they were made."
But here sceptics and objectors will present a further question for reply. How can it be true, say they, that God made no new thing, when it is evident that the bow of heaven or the rainbow was created in the time of Noah? And when also the Lord threatened after the fall of Adam, that it should come to pass that the earth should bring forth thorns and thistles? Which thorns and thistles the earth would not have brought forth had Adam not sinned. Also concerning the serpent, the same cavillers say, that reptile ought to creep along almost upright with its head bending toward the earth; for when first created they say it was doubtless upright, as crows and peacocks move now. We readily acknowledge that this is indeed a new state of things, wrought also by the Word.
It is moreover true that if Adam had not fallen by sin, there would not have been that ferocity in wolves, lions and bears, which now characterizes them. And most certainly also there would have been nothing in the whole creation noxious or annoying to man. For the text before us plainly declares that all things God had created were "very good." Whereas now, how numberless are the annoyances by which we are surrounded? To how many and how great distresses, especially of diseases, is the body itself subject? I will say nothing about fleas, flies, gnats, spiders, mosquitoes, etc. What a host of dangers threaten us continually from the greater ferocious and venomous beasts?
Although there had been none of these new or altered things after the creation, our sceptic objectors can surely believe that there was one glorious and marvellous "new thing," Is. 7:14, "that a virgin should bring forth a Son, the Son of God!" God therefore did not in the seventh day cease to work in every sense, but he works still, not only in preserving his whole creation, but also in altering and new-forming the creature; wherefore that which we said above, that God ceased on the seventh day from creating new orders of things is not to be understood as true absolutely and in every sense.
But we further reply to our cavillers that Moses is here speaking of nature in its yet uncorrupted state. If therefore man had stood unfallen in the innocency in which he was first created, no thorns nor thistles would have existed, no disease would have been known nor any violence of beasts feared. This is manifest from the case of Eve; she talks with